This testimony was given by Alex K. on a message board. All rights belongs to the author.
Hello. I have been an intermittent listener for about two years now. I believeI have had an experience that would be of some interest to Mr. Molyneaux.
On the night of May 27th, 2005, I had a few weeks ago turned 15 years old. I was, I admit, spending too much time playing video games; yet I did not drink, did not use any drugs, and was not harming myself physically.
It was an average night at my home, except this night my parents were unusually suggestive that I should get to sleep at an early hour. After all, as I was told, there were electricians coming the next morning to work on the house and I might be woken up early. Although my parents are intelligent people, in hindsight some of the telltale signs of deception, most notably repetition of a seemingly unimportant point which is important to the deception itself, were visable.
The next morning I was woken up when two strangers walked into my room. They were older, in their early 50s probobly. One was both overweight and muscular while the other was short and lean. I would joke to kids I met on my journey that this was so one could chase me and the other could restrain me, as I've never looked anemic and have always been stronger than most.
I gave the pair a tired hello, rolling over in my bed, angry that these electricians had barged into my room when I was so tired still. The larger man went over to where my shoes were and began to unlace them. The smaller man told me to get up and brush my teeth. He told me we were going. I asked where we were going. I was told I would find out when I arrived.
Although at this point, as clear as the consequences of all our actions are with reflection, I should have known something was amiss, I had remembered my mother telling me I should go to a summer camp in order to get out more, in order to enjoy life more. I thought I was being taken to a camp by friends of my parents friends, or someone else close to the family who I did not know. I followed their directions. When I put my pants on after I had finished brushing my teeth, the larger man grabbed onto the empty belt buckle of my jeans and began to guide me out of the house. I clumsily shuffled down the stairs with my shoe lace-less sneakers to the back door, which, in our house, is near a pushdoor to the kitchen. I wanted to say goodbye to my two dogs, as I thought I would not see them until the end of the summer. When I began to move to push open the door to the kitchen, where my dogs usually are, begging for food and relaxing on the cold tile, I was yanked back into place and led out the back door. I was led out the garage to a minivan I did not recognize. I was forcefully 'assisted' into the back of the minivan and the door was slammed shut.
At this point the two men, who's names I did not know and to this day I do not know, told me I was going to O'Hare Itl. Airport. I asked where we were flying to and I was told North Carolina. I began to panick a bit at this point. I realized I had no control in what was occuring. I felt flustered by the use of force barring me from bidding my dogs and my parents farewell for the summer. Although this is tough to admit to because I love to view myself as a rugged individualist unwilling to allow others to defeat me on a personal intellectual or emotional level, at this point I began to cry. My crying was not out of complaint or pain, but rather it stemmed from the fear of my circumstances. I was locked in a minivan with strangers who had led me there by force, and now I was on my way to an international airport.
As we drove, the trip to O'Hare being about 45 min from my house, the two men talked about the night they had spent in Chicago before. They laughed about the time they'd had at Uno's, a famous Chicago Pizzaria I was familair with, and they showered praise on the city's night life.
When we arrived at the airport I shuffled along with the two men, not willing to subject myself to the force I had experienced earlier when trying to stray from the preordained course. I had a backpack with me that my parents had packed and the two men had given to me. In it was my favorite book, "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque. (Off topic I STRONGLY recommend this book. My initial juvinile misreading of the book led to my pro war patriotism, and my rereadings of the book led to my anti-war pacifism) I began to read while we waited for the flight from Chicago O'Hare to Ashville Airport in North Carolina. We boarded the flight and the plane took off. I was seated in the middle seat of a three seat row, in between the two strangers.
About half way through the flight I was handed a folded sheet of printer paper. It turned out to be a letter, in the style of speech I had learned to associate with my father. The letter told me about how sorry my mother and father were to have had to resort to handing me over to strangers to take me to North Carolina, but it was clear that my lifestyle required some intervention. I immediatly thought of the discussion of summer camps I'd had with my mother. I felt calmed. "I'm going to summer camp." I told myself, "It wont be that bad. At worst it will be boring." As I began to realize that the hand had been taken off of the chess piece, that the plan was in play, I began to calm myself, forcing myself to come to terms with what I thought would merely be the loss of my summer.
If you have come this far without clicking away I applaud you. Up to now most of this has been just description of the initial trauma of an experience that would last for a long time to come.
When the plane landed at the Ashille airport, the two strangers handed me over to a man with an Aussie accent. I was told to get in his car. I did so and we drove off. I asked the man how long I would be where he was taking me, still assuming this was summer camp, and he told me the minimum stay was twenty eight days. I was determined from that point on to be home within the month of June.
When we arrived at camp I saw what could be expected of most summer camps, some log cabin domiciles and kids in the same clothes on an open field sitting around what appeared to me to be a counselor. So far so good.
I remember with a horrific distinctness the moment I realized I was not at summer camp. This was when, in a room in one of the cabins, the man with the Australian accent told me to take off all of my clothes. Not having a say in the matter, I stared blankly at him and did as I was told. He told me to turn around, grab my ankles an cough. I did this too. I was then issued a pair of hiking boots, a pair of pants and two shirts. I was taken to one of the cabins and told which bed I would be sleeping in.
After talking to the other kids in my 'group,' known as "Group G," I was told I was at wilderness. What I learned was that I was in a rehabilitation center for unruly children. The issues these kids had ran the spectrum from those who were slacking in school to hard drug addicts. All of the kids were under eighteen, the age at which they could legally refuse to be taken somewhere against their will. I asked the kids how long we would be forced to stay here. I heard that there was a minimum of twenty eight days, and the maximum time was not defined. Immediatly I began to think my parents made a huge mistake. I did not belong here. This was not a place for me. If I could just get another chance to get the grades my parents wanted me to get, I could reform myself! Anything but this!
I asked the staff member if I could contact my parents. I was told I could write letters but make no phone calls. All my personal belongings that I had travelled with had been confiscated so I asked for pen and paper. I immediatly began writing up a plea to my parents. I concocted a letter begging to be given one more chance live up to my parents expectations, and gave this letter to the staff member responsible for looking after me so he could send it off.
As I learned more, I was told by other kids that most of the children in this camp were sent away to other locations for periods from one year to two years. I was told this was almost always the case, yet I had no fear of this happening to me. "MY parents would never do this." I thought.
A week into my experience at this camp, I was given a few feet of seatbelt material, a sleeping bag, a tarp and a metal cup. I was taught how to roll all my belongings together and tie them to my back with this seatbelt material. A few days after that, my group, group G, set off into the Pisgah National Forest.
It would take a book to document my experiences in those two months alone, but the jist of it was I cooked my own meals, over my own fire which I made with sticks. I pitched a tent with the tarp I used to hike my belongings around, miles a day, and I was not allowed association with others in my group. I was a boy alone in the mountains of North Carolina. Two weeks passed and I got a letter confirming what I thought not possible. This was not the end. I would be going to a "theraputic boarding school" after my stay at wilderness. I was crushed. Two months passed. I was reunited with my parents then swiftly passed off to a "school" in Utah. I spent 6 months there. Fortunately, I was able to convince my parents to remove me from that location, a "school" with window alarms, locked doors, guards posted outside at night and forced work at recycling centers and on road cleanup crews when I agreed to attend a Catholic school although from as long as I can rememeber I have been an atheist.
After the end of the school year at Catholic school, I told my parents I refused to reattend a cathlolic school the next year. Within a week of this announcement I was woken up early by the exact two strangers my story begins with. The horror and addrenaline that rushed through me is inexplicable. I hopped up out of the bedroom where my experience began and tried to flee. I was knocked down at the door by the larger man, he hopped on my back, pushed my face into the carpet and contorted my wrist as to disallow me to move in any way without an increase in the pain I already felt. I was told I could either go back to my "school" in Utah "willingly" or go to a worse place, horror stories of which I had heard from children at the location I was sent to for 6 months in Utah. The large man, no longer a stranger, then showed me a pair of handcuffs and pepper spray. I decided to return to, as we called it, Jail for Kids, willingly.
I spent the next year there. I was allowed to see my family for a total of around 15 days in that period. I witnessed kids try to run. I witnessed those kids fail. I witnessed a "therapist" use the DEATH of a woman in a car accident one of the kids was involved in (sober and not caused by him) AGAINST that child (16 years) in order to extract information the "therapist" thought he knew about where some kids had ran away to.
I witnessed a kid dragged away by thugs to a worse location for the crime of smuggling in caffeine pills, and I saw a kid barred from any social interaction with others for holding hands with a female attendee of the institution.
Please read up on what is going on infront of our eyes, but beyond our scope of vision.
A good website I have found that sums a lot of these places up well: http://www.caica.org/
A list of child murders in these institutions: http://www.caica.org/NEWS%20Deaths%20Main.htm
I saw a kid be forced away to, what I heard from rumor was all of our worst fear... what kept us 'in line.' : http://www.alternet.org/story/31000/ (Tranquility Bay)
I wrote this kind of hastily, realized I was going on too long and summed it all up fairly rapidly, but hopefully I had given some good FDR anti-agression individuals a window into what occurs and what has occured to me.
Thank you,
Alex K.
Source:
The original thread on the Free Domain Radio Message board
